Apple clearly has a substantial interest in making sure that programmers targeting the Mac are getting the best possible performance out of AltiVec processors. The AltiVec unit is not really just a single processing component: it’s a number of different components, and in principle, all of them can be running at once. This article gives an overview of performance considerations that will help you get started making the best possible use of an AltiVec processor.

Apple clearly has a substantial interest in making sure that programmers targeting the Mac are getting the best possible performance out of AltiVec processors. The AltiVec unit is not really just a single processing component: it’s a number of different components, and in principle, all of them can be running at once. This article gives an overview of performance considerations that will help you get started making the best possible use of an AltiVec processor.